In a word, no. But we astrologers can sound a little like tabloid journalists as we breathlessly – urgently – proclaim the drama of an impending eclipse. Don’t eclipses (like all difficult transits) have a potential upside?
In a word, yes. To use a metaphor in keeping with the warming pre-summer temperatures, imagine you are a desk fan. You are designed to oscillate, to turn first way and then another around a central point of equilibrium – flirting with the outer reaches of your orb but always returning safely to center.
Now imagine a mischievous adolescent comes along and decides to find out what will happen if it grabs hold of you to see if it can stop your motion. Friction! Resistance! Depending on how strong you are and how sharp and well-concealed are your blades, the kid might get hurt. But if he manages to hold on and to keep you from your natural oscillating motion… very likely, your motor will burn out.
We living creatures and the societies we build together are designed for oscillation, you see. We’re designed for the specific purpose of moving this way and that, to spread our energy far and wide, and to test boundaries. Eclipses, as moments of developmental crisis when something inside you needs to change, are boundary-testing times. They are times when you have oscillated to the farthest reaches of your own center, rather like a child in a shopping mall who has strayed just a little farther from Mom than he ever has before and is not quite sure he’ll make it back to her. But if he never tests those boundaries, how will he gain confidence? Without a willingness to test your boundaries, how will you ever know what you’re capable of becoming?
The single most positive message of eclipses, I think, is this: trust change. Most of us don’t welcome it, definitely don’t like it, and try to avoid it at all costs. But something in you is pushing you to embrace upheaval, to honor new insights (however threatening they may be), and to expand your range of motion. And if you try to hold yourself in place and stop the movement of your life, you miss an opportunity for a real breakthrough – and risk burn-out.
Eclipses mark moments of real change. Surrender to the process, and embrace the you that is waiting to be born.